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Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands gallery

What parents need to know

Positive messages

The story, which concerns a prince attempting to save a kingdom from an ancient magic, depicts a battle between good and evil, with the player’s character clearly on the side of good. However, the fighting is somewhat sensationalized, and there is a lot of it.

Positive role models

The Prince is undeniably noble and has only good intentions that involve saving his brother, restoring the kingdom, and ensuring the people are free from military tyranny. That said, he relies on his sword to solve many of his problems and is nearly constantly engaged in dangerous acrobatics that no one in the real world should ever try.

Ease of play

The platforming action is designed to keep players from making unintended mistakes, and you can usually rewind time to undo any accidents. Fighting is a little more tricky, but still easy to conquer on lower difficulty settings. It ought not to take long for most players to get the hang of things, regardless of their level of experience with the franchise.

Violence

Players fight a smattering of humans and countless magical creatures using swords, kicks, punches, shoves, and magic. Enemies can be tossed over ledges, thrown up against walls, and defeated using special finishing moves such as deep stabs and slow motion slashes, though no blood or gore is ever depicted. Defeated foes can be heard grunting and yelping in pain.

Sex

Not applicable

Language

Not applicable

Consumerism

This game is part of a long-running franchise and is loosely connected with the Prince of Persia film.

Drinking, drugs, & smoking

Not applicable

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is an action game that involves frequent battles against humans and fantastical creatures, all clearly evil. The game’s protagonist uses his sword, fists, and magic to stylishly carve his way through as many as 50 enemies at once, though there is never any blood or gore. When not in combat, players will engage in clever and relatively innocuous environmental puzzles and platforming challenges, which involve lots of climbing, leaping, and machinery manipulation.

User reviews

Parents say

Kids say

What's it about?

Set between previous Prince of Persia games The Sands of Time and The Warrior Within, PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE FORGOTTEN SANDS sees our agile royal still young and optimistic as he heads out to visit his brother, Prince Malik, in a castle on the outskirts of their kingdom. When he arrives he finds it under siege and his sibling about to set loose an ancient magic force to help defend against the enemy army. But the force proves uncontrollable, and suddenly there’s something greater to worry about than mere humans soldiers: An army of skeletons that can turn people into statues of sand with a single touch. Using his sword to beat back the bony hordes and his parkour-like acrobatic skills to navigate a variety of environmental obstacles, the prince works his way through the giant palace in search of a solution. He gradually learns magical spells that allow him to blast his enemies with icy cold, burn them with fire, and send them spinning into the air in swirling sand storms. He also comes to realize that his brother may end up being a greater threat than the evil he’s unleashed.

Is it any good?

QUALITY

After what appeared to be a reboot of the franchise with 2008’s artsy and unexpected Prince of Persia, Ubisoft’s developers have gone back to basics, providing us with a Prince whose background and abilities should prove much more familiar to fans of this series, many of whom expressed their dislike of the franchise’s new direction. It’s both a blessing and a curse.

The good news is that it feels like slipping on a pair of comfortable shoes. The Prince controls marvellously well, and leaping around carefully designed rooms filled with platforms, swinging bars, and traps is as much fun as it’s ever been. The bad news is that there’s a distinct feeling that we’ve done a lot of this before. The new magical powers help freshen things up a bit -- it's quite fun to swallow up enemies in a sandstorm and freeze water so we can climb it -- and tweaks to the Prince’s acrobatics make his movements as smooth as ever, but don’t expect to be blown away with new features. It’s all been expertly conceived and executed, it’s just not particularly original.

Families can talk about...

Families can talk about the criteria involved in determining whether violent action is suitable for early teen gamers. Is it enough to simply eliminate the depiction of blood and gore? Does it matter if the characters scream or can be seen to be in pain? Whether they’re good or evil?

Families can also discuss the parkour-like stunts in the game. Are the Prince’s acrobatics believable? Do his tricks make you want to try running up walls and making long leaps? Do you think kids might try to emulate the Prince’s moves and accidentally hurt themselves?

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About Our Rating System

The age displayed for each title is the minimum one for which it's developmentally appropriate. We recently updated all of our reviews to show only this age, rather than the multi-color "slider." Get more information about our ratings.

fun game and but could be difficult and frustrating for younger audiences.

I like the game, the graphics are good and the story is good too. I like the whole jumping around carefully designed rooms filled with platforms, swinging bars, and traps is as much fun as it’s ever been. But it feels like we done this before in other games. The violence has no blood (the enemies bleed sand) and there is no profanity, sex, etc. Overall it's a very fun game for those who can handle it.

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